Chapter II - The Group On Cause

hetu-gocchakam

I.

The three causes of the indeterminate.
The nine causes operative in the sensuous universe.
The six causes operative in the universe of form.
The six causes operative in the universe of the formless.

The six causes operative in the life that is the Unincluded.

(A) In this connexion,

[1054] Which are the three causes of good karma?

The absence of lust, hate and dulness.

In this connexion,

[1055] What is the absence of lust?

The absence of lust, lusting, lustfulness is the absence of infatuation, of raving, of passionateness;
the absence of covetousness, that absence of lust which is the root of good (karma).[2]

[1056] What is the absence of hate?

The absence of hate, hating, hatred;
love,[3] loving, loving disposition; [4]
tender care, forbearance, considerateness; [5]seeking the general good,[6] compassion;
the absence of malice, of malignity;
that absence of hate which is the root of good (karma).[7]

[1057] What is the absence of dulness?

Knowledge about ill, about the uprising of ill, about the cessation of ill, and about the way leading to the cessation of ill;
knowledge about the former things, about the latter things, about both taken together;
knowledge about the assignable causation of causally determined states

— even that kind of wisdom which is understanding, search, research, searching the Truth, etc.

he has done me harm, is doing, will do me harm;
he has done harm, is doing harm, will do harm to someone dear and precious to me;
he has conferred a benefit, is conferring, will confer a benefit on someone I dislike and object to;
or when annoyance springs up groundlessly[50] :

Lack of knowledge about Ill,
lack of knowledge about the uprising of Ill,
lack of knowledge about the cessation of Ill,
lack of knowledge about the way leading to the cessation of Ill;
lack of knowledge about the former things, about the latter things and about both taken together;
lack of knowledge about the assignable causation of causally determined states

— even all that kind of lack of knowledge which is

lack of insight,
of understanding,
of wakefulness,
of enlightenment,
of penetration,
of comprehension,
of sounding,
of comparing,
of contemplation,
of perspicacity;

impurity,
childishness,
unintelligence,
the dulness that is stupidity,
obtuseness, ignorance,
a flood of ignorance,
the yoke of ignorance,
the dependence of ignorance,
the being possessed by ignorance,
the barrier of ignorance,
the dulness that is the root of evil

The absence of lust, hate and dulness coming to pass as the result of good states, or as the indeterminate states known as kiriya-thoughts.[59]

[1063] Which are the nine causes operative in the sensuous universe (kamavacarahetu)?

The three causes of good [karma], the three causes of bad [karma], the three causes of indeterminate [states] — these are the nine.

[1064] Which are the six causes operative in the universe of form?

The three causes of good [karma], the three causes of indeterminate [states] — these are the six.

[1065] Which are the six causes operative in the universe of the formless?

The three causes of good [karma], the three causes of indeterminate [states] — these are the six.

[1066] Which are the six causes operative in the Unincluded?

The three causes of good [karma], the three causes of indeterminate [states] — these are the six.

In this connexion,

[1067] Which are the three causes of good [karma]?

The absence of lust, hate and dulness.

In this connexion,

[1068-1070] What is the absence of lust ... of hate ... of dulness?

Answers as in §§ 1055-1057, but omitting in § 1056, from 'hatred' to 'the absence of malice', exclusively.[60]

These are the three causes of good [karma].

(D) In this connexion,

[1071] Which are the three causes of indeterminate [states]?

The absence of lust, hate and dulness coming to pass as the effect of good states — these are the three.

These are the six causes operative in the Unincluded. These are the states which are causes.

[1072] Which are the states that are not causes?

Every state, good, bad and indeterminate, whether related to the worlds of sense, of form, of the formless, or to the life that is Unincluded, except the states enumerated above; in other words, the four skandhas; all form also and uncompounded element.

- Footnotes:

In connexion with the statement (§ 595) that form is 'that which is not a cause', the Cy. distinguishes, as did Aristotle, four varieties of cause. The coincidence, however, scarcely extends beyond the number. Hetu is either

the trinity of threefold cause given in § 1053. Here the word is always paraphrased by 'root', root, conversely, standing for productive agent in general (see the list in note to § 981), and, of course, for moral agency especially.

(b)

'I have declared, bhikkhu, that the four great phenomena are the causes, are the conditions of the form-skandha'.

When the paccayo is material, it may be said to coincide with Aristotle's second formal principle η υλη και το υποκειμενον. Possibly paccayo was this conception so generalized as to include the immaterial wherewithal requisite for the effect. Colebrooke, however ('Life and Essays', ii. 419), said that the Bauddhas distinguish between hetu as proximate cause and pratyaya (paccayo) as concurrent occasion.

(c)

'When good (karma) takes effect, it is the object ultimately or supremely desired'

— and the opposite, of course, in the case of bad karma. This may possibly approximate to Aristotle's final cause (το ου ενεκα).

(d)

'As the essence of the elements of earth and water (solid and liquid) are the condition of sweet or not-sweet, so is ignorance the common base-element of the syntheses (sanskaras). In our present connexion the term is said to be used in its first-named meaning.

Anudda, anuddayana, anuddayitattam. The Cy. paraphrases by rakkhati, showing the reference there is in these terms, usually rendered by 'pity', 'compassion', to the protective, shielding aspect of altruism and benevolence. Cf its use in C. vii. 3, 13; S. ii., p. 218, where it is used to express that attitude of forbearance in the interests of the weaker brethren recommended by St. Paul to Eoman and Corinthian adherents.

By all these words (i.e., from 'love' to 'compassion'), concludes Buddhaghosa, the advance (up a car a) and conception (appana) of love is described. Possibly the procedure in the induction of Jhana was in his mind in using these technical terms. Cf. Khys Davids, 'Yogavacara's Manual', p. xi.

This is opposed to patigho or repugnance in Mil. 44; cf. 122 and 322. The comment (Asl. 362) — visayesu sattanam anunayanato — may indicate that the fawning is by way of pandering to the sensual appetites of others.

The term is probably formed from sa, to bind (or to gain), and usually, by its context, signifies attachment. Cf. M. i. 109, 498; Mil. 74. Judging by the Commentary, however, there seems to be a homonym derived from the root a 9, to eat, similar to th e parallel evolution of jhayati, from dhya and ksa. Cf. Ehys Davids, 'Dialogues of the Buddha', i. 33, note 2.

The passage in A. i. 66, 67, is the only one at present known to me where the word, occurring as it does in coordination with terms of attachment and also of greed, may be rendered equally well in either sense.

Before 'thirst for sounds' K. inserts rupatanha for the second time, the rupani craved for here being presumably 'sights', 'perceptions of sight', as distinguished from that supersensuous plane of being craved for under the former rupatanha, and ranking next to the formless plane. The Cy., on the other hand, only notices between 'thirst for annihilation' and 'thirst for sounds', the word ditthirago, passion for speculation.

E.g., when one is vexed because it rains too much, or because it doesn't rain, or because the sun is too hot, or not hot enough, or because there is too much or too little wind, or because one cannot sweep away the Bo-tree-leaves, or because the wind prevents one from putting on one's robe, or because one has fallen over a tree stump'.

The sustamiiig of a cause in concomitance with a given state is so much harped upon by the Cy. that one is tempted to surmise that the mediaeval controversy, known by the formula, Cessante causa cessat et effectus, was not unfamiliar to Buddhist scholastics.

Have we here the categorizing of certain states, for the maintenance of which, as effects, the continuance of the cause is required? In that case the Buddhist would have agreed (see § 1075, n.) with a modern logician (J. S. Mill) that, in some cases only,

'The continuance of the condition which produced an effect is necessary to the continuance of the effect'.

The coincidence, however, is extremely doubtful.

The Pali even leaves it vague as to whether the concomitant cause is the cause of the state in question; sometimes, indeed, this is evidently not the case.

E.g., in § 1077 'dulness' is a hetu-dhammo, but not therefore the cause of the concomitant states, lust and hate. The compilers were, as usual, more interested in the psychology than in the logic of the matter, and were inquiring into the factors in cases of mental association.

Hetu-sampayutta. On the import of the term sampayutto, see p. 1, n. 4. This pair of opposites is further declared to be not different in meaning from the preceding pair (atthato nanattam natthi), and the formulae only differentiated for the purpose of adaptation to the various dispositions (aj jhasayavasena) of the hearers. Asl. 48. This coincidence of meaning seems, however, to be applicable only in the sphere of hetu.

In the next gocchakam, the attribute of asavavippayutta is allowed to be compatible with the attribute sasava, § 1111, and so for subsequent gocchakas.